


Knot The Tie

by helens78



Category: X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014) - Fandom
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Post-Movie(s), Silly Arguments, Ties & Cravats
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-29
Updated: 2014-08-29
Packaged: 2018-02-15 05:38:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2217759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helens78/pseuds/helens78
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Charles refuses to put effort into his neckties.  Erik's fiddling is really covering another worry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Knot The Tie

**Author's Note:**

> Makes reference to Charles's unhappy childhood.

"Here, let me--"

"It's fine. Erik, it's _fine_ \-- hands off, _off_!" Charles glared at him and rolled back a step, taking himself out of Erik's reach. His hand hovered perilously near his temple. "Don't make me _make_ you."

Erik rolled his eyes. "And to think you make fun of _my_ fashion sense. Who's tying a four-in-hand, hm?" Erik checked his own reflection in the hallway mirror. Of course _his_ knot was perfect, beautifully symmetrical, probably a full Windsor. Charles refused to look closely enough to identify it for certain, because the last thing he needed was to give Erik a reason to believe he cared.

He tucked the small end of his tie between two shirt buttons and smoothed down the front. Perfect. No one would be able to tell. Except Erik, but who apart from Erik was ever going to look all that closely at his tie? Charles had a much more noticeable accessory, one that took people's attention right off whatever he was wearing and placed it squarely under his arse.

He'd gotten used to that-- he'd had to, over the past three years, as he reclaimed his power and rebuilt his school and Erik came home to stay-- and so far as getting attention off his tie was concerned, he'd take any reason he could get and be damn glad of it. It wasn't as if he didn't know how to tie a Windsor knot, or any other number of knots. It wasn't as though he couldn't get the length right consistently. He'd just done plenty of that over the course of his life, particularly his early life. The number of times his mother had fixed his tie, the number of times his stepfather had jerked at it and told him to do it over... he was damned if he was going to give a necktie more than a moment's thought ever again, no matter what his fellow professor and annoyingly handsome lover said about it.

Erik slipped into his suit jacket and buttoned the top button, brushing an invisible speck of lint off one lapel. He adjusted his pocket square. Charles rolled his eyes. If there was a more vain man attached to this school than Erik Lehnsherr, Charles couldn't imagine who it could possibly be.

"Are you ready at last? Can we go now?" Charles asked. Erik glanced his direction, and Charles caught a sense of annoyance on Erik's end, too. "Look, I'm sorry if you feel I'm rushing you--"

"It isn't that." Erik bent down and brushed a kiss against Charles's cheek-- which certainly wasn't the action Charles would have expected him to take. He didn't even use it as an excuse to adjust Charles's tie.

Slightly mollified, Charles asked, "Well, what, then?"

"It does irk me somewhat that I can spend all the time in the world trying to look neat, and here you are, looking as though you just rolled out of bed--"

"--and out the front door?" Charles joked. It'd recently gotten to the point, after all these years, when it didn't feel too soon to make jokes of that sort. It was getting easier for both of them, and Charles wasn't going to let go of that victory.

Still, that didn't mean Erik was going to be distracted from his point. "And you still look twice as good as I ever will, not to mention you look like you fit in with these people twice as well as I ever could."

At that, Charles could only laugh. "Erik. They're only parents. It's not as though they're an army hell-bent on mutant annihilation. Quite the opposite, really, they _fund_ this school. Not to mention serve as excellent publicity, since they're all very happy with the education their children are receiving."

"The education they know about, at least," Erik murmured. "Remind me again, what am I meant to tell them I teach?"

"Physical education," Charles said sweetly, giving Erik his very best innocent smile. The hint of astonishment in Erik's mind told him that he'd pulled it off.

"Nobody had better ask me anything about the rules of field hockey. Or tennis," Erik muttered. "Do you know, when we have these events, sometimes I actually _hope_ for an invasion of human extremists. Fighting extremists, at least, I know how to _do_."

"I also tell people you teach languages," Charles offered. "You could pretend you've forgotten how to speak English, and give them answers in broken German all night."

"You are not nearly as funny as you think you are," Erik said, wrinkling his nose. "All right, Charles, I'm as ready as I'm going to get."

"So am I," Charles said, putting a protective hand over his necktie before Erik could attempt to distract himself by fussing with it again. "Let's go. I've got designs on funding a new recreational facility with what we raise tonight."

"Recreational facility?"

"For you. If you like," Charles said, grinning at Erik, "we could call it a Danger Room."


End file.
